How to sew Felt Corn on the Cob

January 1, 2009

After successfully making Felt Strawberries, I decided to challenge myself and moved on to Felt Corn. I liked the way Homemade by Jill used a basket weave approach for making felt corn in this post, but I preferred the more three-dimensional style of corn created here at Just Stuff. I decided to combine the two ideas to create a tutorial all of my own!

(Note: Wool felt is much softer and nicer than acrylic felt, and is what I used for this project. I purchase mine from BumbleBee Designs, here in Australia.)

Fabric Glue

Dark Green and Yellow Thread

Polyfill or other Toy Stuffing Material

Cutting implements – I used scissors, rotary cutter, ruler and a cutting mat (you could use a knife or scissors instead of a rotary cutter)

Procedure

Step 1: Cut three oval shapes from one of the yellow sheets of felt. Also cut three oval shapes from the dark green felt. My sheets were 30cm x 25cm (12″ x 10″). I cut them in half on the long side, so I had a 15cm x 25cm (6″ x 10″) piece. I then cut that in quarters, so I had four rectangles of 15cm x 8cm (6″ x 2.5″). I rounded off the corners to create by oval shape like this:

Step 2: Cut five slits in each of the yellow ovals, just over 1cm apart (just under 1/2″), starting approximately 1cm from the edge of the felt piece. I did most of cutting with a rotary cutter and ruler, and finished off towards the edges with scissors.

Step 3: Cut the light yellow (or white) piece of felt into strips with a width of just over 1cm apart (just under 1/2″).

Step 4: Weave the light yellow (or white) strips of felt through the slits in the bright yellow felt pieces, alternating between the light yellow (or white) and the bright yellow starting each row on top, as shown:

Step 5: Place a blob of glue on each end of the light yellow (or white) strips to stick to the bright yellow felt pieces. To ensure a tight weave, it is best to glue one end of each strip first. Wait for it to dry, and then pull each strip tight before gluing the other end. This minimises the stuffing showing through in the final product.

Step 6: Trim the ends of the light yellow (or white) strips if they hang over the edges of the bright yellow piece.

Step 7: Sewing two of the pieces together along one side.

Step 8: Sew the third piece to on side of one of the other pieces.

Step 9: Sew the final seam, leaving a gap of approximately 5cm (2″) at one end.

Step 10: Turn the corn inside out through the hole left in the previous step. If it’s anything like mine, the weaving will gets twists and will need to be untwisted and straightened out.